For residents of the Twittersphere, a world so prevalent that it was recently added to the Oxford Dictionary, Twitter chats are a great way to expand your network online while also learning more about a given topic.

The idea is simple — Twitter users who are interested in a certain subject have a discussion over Twitter at a given time by all following the same hash tag — a term preceded by a pound sign that corrals all tweets in which it’s included. Participating can be a great way to share information about your store, brand or area of expertise, as well as learn from others. It can also be a valuable tool to interact with other users and expand your followers.

Participating is easy. If you already have a Twitter account, simply type the hash tag into the Twitter search bar. You can also use other sites like Tweet Chat, which make following chats even easier by filtering out non-hash-tagged tweets, as well as automatically adding the hash tag to all of your tweets to make sure they are seen by others in the chat.

Looking for a place to start? Here are just a few popular chats in the design community:

Interior Designer Chat is a weekly chat for interior designers, design bloggers and anyone in the home décor industry. Each week’s chat centers around a different topic with industry experts serving as guest hosts. Follow @IntDesignerChat for more information.

Founded by Leslie Carothers of social media agency The Kaleidoscope Partnership, the Get Published chat is meant to help create opportunities for getting published in the design and furniture industry. Follow Carothers (@tkpleslie) for more information.

When: First Wednesday of the month at 6 p.m. ET, with special editions before major trade shows.